Federal, State and Territory Governments have enacted a range of statutory laws to protect whistleblowers. The aim of these laws is to provide protection to those individuals in the private and public sector who report unlawful acts made by organizations, contractors and their employees. Provided the disclosure is made in 'good faith', the person making the disclosure is afforded protection from being sued for defamation, breach of confidence under their employment contract or for breach of their common law fiduciary duty. This paper has two purposes; first, the objective of the Australian Government in introducing new whistleblowing laws that extend protection to the consumer protection area and taxation, namely the Treasury Laws Amendment (Whistleblowers) Bill 2017-Exposure Draft is examined. Secondly, an alternative approach to whistleblowing is considered. By way of contrast, a Singaporean approach which heavily relies on self-reporting and an internal investigation involving an Audit Committee of the corporation is critically examined to assess the potential for introducing a self-reporting approach in Australia. Our analysis finds that in Singapore, culture plays a role in the attitude of the Singaporean employee contemplating reporting unlawful activity and, more importantly in how the disclosure is treated by the corporation or public institution. This paper adds to the literature which examines alternative approaches and attitudes to whistleblowing by providing a comparative discussion of the Australian and Singaporean legal approaches.

This paper proposes a new social science oriented methodological approach to examining the behavior of different policymaker’s actions in the process of shaping and implementing public policies. Under this new model, the policymakers’ behavior constitutes the dependent variable under observation in the study while various external mechanisms are treated as independent variables acting to manipulate policy outcomes. Each of the objects studied in their respective models, as well as each of the external mechanisms, are inextricably intertwined in the political systems which enact, adjudicate, and ultimately implement policy. As complex organizations, these dependent variables are infinitely complicated and their behavioral patterns subject to multiple independent variable impacts. This proposed case study model will focus on individual cases that allow for an in depth examination of events and draw inferential causal connections using a number of innovative techniques. The mechanisms of policy change, or the independent variables, will additionally be explored using a case study analysis and intervening causal factors will be carefully examined by using within case analysis to plot interrelationships among event observations. The validity of a hypothesis would be rigorously tested by both within-case analyses, and will be supplemented by a comparative cross-case analysis when appropriate, and further bolstered by a novel interview process to reject or reinforce inferential assumptions drawn from the model. This unique combination of qualitative testing methodologies when applied in linear sequence creates a rigorous analytical framework with enhanced internal and external model validity that can be utilized across social science disciplines.   Keywords - Social Sciences, Qualitative Innovation, comprehensive trace processing, policy change, Vietnam

For many companies, shareholders are arguably the most importantstakeholders.  By providing firms with capital via the purchase of shares, investorsexpect a profitable distribution of earnings, most commonly in the form ofdividends. Jurisdictions in different nations, such as Vietnam and Australia (theobjects of this statutory comparative analysis), have adopted various approachesregarding the taxation of company earnings and dividends, which may haveconsiderable economic and social implications. This paper conducts a rigorousanalysis which examines both the Australian and Vietnamese taxation rules ondividends, as well as evaluating whether the law in one country is preferable tothe other. The qualitative methodology employed was statutory case oriented evaluation which scrutinizes the operation of specific statutory policies, how those policies function comparatively, and the concomitant outcomes each respectivepolicy produces. The comparative case analysis demonstrates that Vietnam, as adeveloping economic force in Southeast Asia, can increase the allure of capitalinvestment by adopting dividend taxation laws more favorable to investors. Keywords - Taxation, Corporations Law, Dividends, Capital Investment, EconomicTheory, Foreign Trade, Economic Growth, Stimulus, Income Tax, DescriptiveResearch, Australia, Vietnam